


Statistically Significant Silas

by your_kat



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-22 06:44:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2498429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_kat/pseuds/your_kat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Statistically significant as compared to whom, you may ask. The answer: to everyone; all universities, existent and non-existent alike, in all of creation. Meet a new side of Silas: one purely of facts. We simply couldn't make this stuff up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alpha

 

 

> **Rigorous statistical analysis shows that 99.9% of Silas University matriculates will experience vivid, highly realistic dream sequences during their time here (approximately 78.4% of these dreams will occur while sleeping).** **Subject matter of said dreams ranges from the benign to the psychologically irreversible.**
> 
> ** Psychiatric Student Services are available for anyone suffering a reduction in their quality of life secondary to dreaming experienced on campus. Quality of life can be subjectively determined via validated questionnaire, but Student Health requires hair, blood, and nail samples before any definitive diagnosis can be made or treatment strategy initiated. **

Laura woke with a start, like falling.

Blood and darkness, terror and doom.

It had become her norm.

“Why so spooked, cutie?”

The voice was like a purr. Like a cat, pacing — stalking prey in the black of night.

Laura looked over and took in the sight of Carmilla, reading a book in the muted gloom of a pre-sunrise Silas.

“Bad dream,” Laura muttered, swinging her legs out of bed. She let her body equilibrate for a moment, blinking in a long, hard, purposeful press of her eyelids, hoping to see a world that was as close to normal as Silas dared be when she opened them again. But everything looked the same as it had before, when she came back to the world. She sighed. A glance at her desk, and she caught sight of a pamphlet she had been perusing the night before. “I think I need an appointment with Psych Services…”

Carmilla’s response was a guilty look directed down at her own elbow, where it rested on Laura’s yellow pillow. She had stolen it, the night previous when she'd gotten in from her usual late-night prowling of campus.

With one quick movement, she was up and in the space between their beds. Her hair fell over her shoulders, one of her eyes was obscured by those dark bangs that always seemed to be hiding something. And she looked somehow vulnerable, Laura thought, standing between them, there, with nothing but the yellow pillow for protection.

“Here,” she said, holding it out. With a shrug, “This helps me.”

Laura reached out, took it, pressed it to her face. She inhaled, long and deep. And when she pulled back, smile on her lips, Carmilla was already gone.

“Thanks,” she whispered. The word stayed between her, and the pillow.

And that was all right. For now.


	2. Beta

> ** Students participating in the Quantum Reality symposium each spring die, and don’t. No published data on attendee mortality have been released since its inception in 1952. **
> 
> ** Speculation in regards to whether or not students are dead or alive during the conference has largely been put to rest by the following argument, by Carol Ruediger Greene, Silas University alumnus, class of 1974: “Whether or not conference attendees are dead or not — or both — at any given point during the conference is irrelevant. The closed system of the designated symposium hall, upon being opened from the outside at the designated time, signaling the end of the conference, is either full of dead bodies, or isn’t. Pre-specified measures are in place to turn back time in infinitesimal increments given the former result, and the door is opened again, with the hope of achieving the latter. This is done, as you can imagine, as many times as it takes. A small price to pay — for science.” **
> 
> ** Inquiries regarding the Quantum Reality Standing Committee’s apparent ability to time travel were consistently (and simultaneously) met with both roaring silence and actual roaring. **

“I don’t know why I let you drag me out for  _dinner_ ,” Carmilla grumbled. “We both know I keep my meals on ice.”

“I thought a little bonding time outside of our box of cohabitation would be nice!”

Laura walked along, veritably bouncing on her toes with every step. If Carmilla’s gait could even be properly identified, it would be something of a  _slink_  in comparison.

You can picture it. Moving on.

“Ohh!” Laura squealed, hopping back and forth from one foot to the other and pointing at the display sign ahead of them. “Look, it’s the conference LaFontaine is at!”

_** QUANTUM REALITY SYMPOSIUM: BEYOND THE PARADOX ** _

“Oh, boy,” Carmilla rolled her eyes so slowly, any passerby could see that she had spent a lifetime (or several) perfecting the art. “I bet she’s having a  _blast_. I hope for the poor floor don’s sake that she didn’t get dragged along.”

They moved closer, and Carmilla’s steps became decidedly less  _slinky_  as Laura’s hand approached the door. She was much more cautious than Laura — not in and of itself out of the ordinary, to be honest.

“Holy wow, look! This sign says they have a  _sundae bar!_  We  _have_  to go check it out.”

With Laura’s hand on the door leading into the massive hall, Carmilla leaned forward. Time seemed to slow down, nearly bending to her will, as she focused on the sounds on the other side of the door: because there were definitely voices, but there also  _weren’t_.

“Laura,” she breathed, “ _don’t_.”

Laura huffed and puffed for a bit as Carmilla leaned against the door, easily holding it shut even as Laura tried to pull it open.

“ _Fine!_ ” Laura eventually acquiesced, quite unhappily storming off in the direction they had originally been going. “But you can buy me an ice cream cone in the caf!”

With Laura’s back turned, Carmilla smiled. It was a small smile, but it was more sincere than she had probably expressed in a good long while.

Before turning to follow her human, Carmilla gave the door one last wary glance.

She had really never trusted quantum physics. Some things, well — they were just too much. Even for beings of the supernatural persuasion.


	3. Gamma

 

 

> **One in five individuals who enter the subbasement of the library between 6:52PM and 4:19AM the following day are never seen again.**
> 
> **If they are seen again, however, it is likely that the seer is merely hallucinating. Carry on. There is _literally_  nothing to see.**
> 
> **_Nothing at all._ **

“Oh,  _drat_.”

Carmilla focuses on the text in front of her, purposefully choosing to ignore the worrisome noises that were now coming all too freely from her roommate’s facial orifice.

“Gosh  _darnit_ ,” the small one continues.

Carmilla rolls her eyes.

Silence follows.  _Dodged a silver bullet_ , Carmilla thinks.

Alas, all too soon did that mental sigh of relief occur.

“Carmilla,” Laura coos, and Carmilla instantly begins to melt lower, and lower, and lower behind her book. “Car _milla_ ,” she sing-songs.

“What,” Carmilla deadpans.

“I have a favor to ask of you.”

“No.”

“You haven’t even heard my request yet,” Laura implores.

“What,” Carmilla repeats.

“This assignment I’m working on is due at eight o’clock sharp in the morning. However, I’ve run into something of a teeny tiny  _snag_ — I forgot to grab one of the references I need when I was at the library earlier this afternoon.”

“ _And?_ ” Carmilla drawls.

“ _And_ —” Laura mimics “—the text I need, it’s in the subbasement.”

Carmilla’s head lolls around on her shoulders until she’s staring at the clock on the wall above Laura’s computer.

“It’s 6:45,” she says, as if this is explanation enough. And it should be.

“I know,” Laura agrees, standing up and pacing the small patch of floor between their beds. _Give it another semester,_  Carmilla thinks _, and we’ll be needing to replace this carpet._  “And I know what the handbook says, I’ve seen the disappearance rates. But—!” and here, she spins on her heels and faces Carmilla with a glint of optimism in her eyes that Carmilla feels an inexplicable urge to crush (or protect, she can’t really decide), “—I figure if I have  _you_  with me —my brave, ridiculously strong, vampiric roommate — what could possibly go wrong?!”

_6 minutes later…_

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

“Honestly?” Laura questions, turning to her left and raising an eyebrow at her apathetic roommate. “I didn’t have to try particularly hard.”

“Whatever,” Carmilla replies, “I need to stop by the section of ancient philosophical texts. My bedtime reading has been devastatingly light lately.”

“ _Oh-_ kay,” Laura, eternally skeptical, says in return. “Let’s do this!”

They walk up the front steps, passing several departing, last-minute stragglers who are haggardly escaping the building. As Laura and Carmilla approach the front doors, wide-screen monitors come to life on the other side of the glass.

**_THE TIME IS CURRENTLY 6:53pm. ENTER AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION. BEWARE: 1 in 5 DO NOT EXIT._ **

In the last word —  _exit_  — some kind of program error was causing a flickering, an almost phantom projection, just barely discernible by the naked eye: the word “exit” turned to “exist”, and then back to “exit”, over and over again.

Laura stares at the warning for a few seconds, nearly starting to second guess her true need for the book in question. Her musings are interrupted by the ever apt Carmilla.

“One in five? I almost wish the ginger squad was here. Those are some odds I would take great enjoyment in playing.”

With a roll of her eyes, Laura reaches out and grabs onto Carmilla’s arm. “Let’s go, Morticia.”

Carmilla nearly stumbles forward, even though she’s more than capable of withstanding the strong but admittedly still  _very human_  grip on her forearm. It’s something like a tingle, what she feels, and maybe it starts in her arm, but she thinks it ends up somewhere in her chest.

They enter the library.

_57 minutes later…_

“My god,” Carmilla protests as they stumble out into the black of night beyond the slightly hazy, purple glow emanating from the library’s windows. “I really hope this was worthwhile for you, niblet.”

“ _I’m_  not the only one who benefited,” Laura retaliates, gesturing to the massive text beneath Carmilla’s crooked arm. “We’re lucky the card catalog was so helpful. I was worried we weren't going to escape the shelves dedicated to Ancient Warfare.”

“Who would have thought a Sun Tzu text capable of such violence against the innocent?” Carmilla says, reaching out and nearly touching a small cut on Laura’s collarbone.

“It’s… it’s nothing,” Laura says, momentarily losing her thoughts before refocusing and holding up her prize. “I got what we came for! And we still exist!”

“Congratulations,” Carmilla replies, hardly a touch of sarcasm in her tone.  _Hardly._

They begin walking back to their resident hall.

They haven’t touched since before entering the library. But Carmilla still feels warm.

She wonders how long it will last.


	4. Delta

> **Occurring annually on the first day of March, the Adonis Hunt was instituted in 1522 by the Summer Society.**
> 
> **On the morning of the hunt, one unsuspecting Zeta brother will wake to find a wooden carving of a wild boar resting on his bedside table, indicating that he has been ~~purposefully~~  randomly chosen to be the Adonis; occasionally, the Summer Society trials an actual wild boar as the “invitation”, but this causes the Hunt to be an average of 12.7 hours shorter in duration  ~~typically secondary to Adonis’s blood loss~~.**
> 
> **It is universally understood that the chosen Adonis must then run, run fast.**
> 
> **The longest Adonis Hunt on record lasted 6 months, 11 days, 8 hours, and 17 minutes in the year 1907. The shortest lasted 12 minutes and 52 seconds in the year 1783. Only twice in the long history of the Adonis Hunt has the chosen Adonis eluded the terminal outcome (1837 and 1921).**
> 
> **The Summer Society believes the invitation to be a great honor bestowed upon the chosen Zeta.**
> 
> **The Zeta Omega Mus just think of it as bad luck.**

“—And  _that’s_  what Shakespeare meant when he said, ‘ _All the world’s a stage_ ’.”

“Wow, Danny, you’re amazing!” Laura said, all big smiles and true enthusiasm. “I mean, I’ve always enjoyed reading Shakespeare, but you really manage to bring the words to life.”

Danny ducked her chin to her chest as she stood, the blush rising on her cheeks only serving to make her more endearing in Laura’s book.

From her bed a couple of steps away, Carmilla curled her lip and pressed a growl of annoyance back down her throat and into her stomach.

“Well, that’s my job,” Danny explained, grabbing her things and preparing to leave.

She strapped her backpack on and then stared down at tiny Laura in front of her, wanting desperately to bend down and kiss those smiling lips — but, no, they were going slow. They could be friends, couldn’t they? They could make this work. It definitely didn’t hurt that they enjoyed immensely each other’s company — even when broody, useless Morticia was watching over them with her hawk-like eyes.

“Really, Danny,” Laura said, reaching out and pressing the flat of her palm against Danny’s arm. “Thanks.”

“Umm, yeah,” Danny stumbled. “My pleasure. Gotta run to my Society meeting now.”

As she turned towards the door, Carmilla perked up. She glanced over at Laura’s Veronica Mars wall calendar and noted the date.

“Hey, gingersnap!” she called just as Danny was crossing the threshold. The girl turned back with a skeptically arched brow. “It’s about time to choose an Adonis, right?”

Danny narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Laura took the moment of silence while Danny was contemplating her response to glance back and forth between the two of them, preparing to go all Krav Maga on their asses if they so much as thought about picking a fight.

“Yes,” Danny responded, each of the following syllables heavy on her tongue, “It’s about that time.”

“Well, I know it’s  _random_  and all. But maybe you could suggest…  _Will_.”

Laura gaped openly, flabbergasted by the fact that a civilized conversation was occurring between the two people who seemed to be most eternally at odds with each other.

“Yeah,” Danny nodded her head slowly several times before turning back to the hallway, “Maybe I could.”

Then she was gone, and Laura was left standing in the middle of the room, utterly confused.

She turned to her roommate.

“Will?  _Adonis?_  What does it all  _mean?!_ ”

“Don’t fret, buttercup. Just one less thing for me to worry about.”

Laura tilted her head and observed Carmilla, who had already gone back to reading her latest book.

“For  _us_  to worry about,” Laura quietly corrected.

Carmilla caught her gaze over the top of the page. “Yeah,” she breathed, “for us.”


	5. Epsilon

> **The Silas cafeteria serves approximately 10.7 tons of anchovies per semester.**
> 
> **Complaints about the tonnage of anchovies served per semester are typically silenced in a mean time of 6.8ms.**
> 
> ** Complain about the anchovies at your own risk. **

Laura stared disdainfully at the dangling anchovy between her pinched fingertips. The hustle and bustle of the dining hall fell on deaf ears as she contemplated her unsavory lunch.

“You know, I really don’t see why they keep feeding us these—”

“Laura,” Carmilla snapped from across the table. She was wearing sunglasses and a look of utter boredom, but she had straightened up from her usual slouch the second Laura had started complaining about the— “Just eat your lunch.”

“But these things are—”

“Wonderfully delicious and nutritious?” Carmilla offered.

“No, they’re—”

“The greatest lunch a growing college girl could ever hope for?” Carmilla tried again.

“You’re sipping AB out of a water bottle, what does it matter to you if I despise the ancho—”

Carmilla practically leapt the table. Her hand was instantly covering Laura’s mouth.

“Listen, kid, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll just shut your piehole,  _kapisch?_ ”

Laura, wide-eyed, nodded her head slowly. Carmilla’s hand went up and down with the movement.

“All right,” Carmilla said, slowly lowering her hand.

As soon as she was turning back towards the table, her hands wrapping around her blood bottle, Laura spoke again.

“But I just don’t see why we have to suffer through—”

“ _DANNY!_ ” Carmilla roared.

Across the hall, at a table full of Summer Society Sisters, one head peeked up above the rest. Carmilla gestured to the girl sitting next to her once she had the tall one’s attention. Danny stood and made her way over.

“Please talk some sense into your  _girlfriend_ ,” Carmilla grumbled.

“Why don’t  _you_  talk some sense into  _your_ girlfriend?” Danny retorted; and while her tone was sharp, her slight smirk belied her true feelings.

Laura, now sandwiched between Carmilla on her left and Danny to her right, smiled — entirely too pleased with herself.

“Gosh, having two girlfriends isn’t half as bad as having to suffer through copious amounts of anchovie—”

“ _LAURA!_ ” Carmilla and Danny screamed in unison.

Laura smiled. She wasn’t sure what she was doing wrong, exactly, but Buffy and Morticia working together was a sight to behold.

She could definitely live with this.


	6. Zeta

> **Twenty-seven dracopyromaniacs live on the Silas University campus. Each year, they are responsible for approximately 2.7 million monetary units in damages.**
> 
> **Concerns are raised annually about the necessity of their presence; said concerns are typically readily incinerated.**

Perry walks into Laura and Carmilla’s room, looking about as haggard as they’ve ever seen her. LaFontaine is close on her heels.

She sags down onto Laura’s bed. Laura watches her with raised eyebrows from her desk chair, while Carmilla pretends to not be watching her at all. LaFontaine pats her awkwardly — but also quite lovingly — on the top of her head. There are scorch marks on the hem of Perry’s shirt, and she has soot on her cheeks.

With no request for an explanation, she sighs heavily and provides one anyway: “It’s the dracopyromaniacs again. They’re  _constantly_  refusing our peace terms.”

“Peace terms?” Laura questions.

“We just want them to stop  _burning things down_ , honestly.”

“Well,” LaFontaine suggests, “they  _are_ wild. They’re just doing what wild things do.”

“Wait, what?” Laura, again.

“Okay, what has you confused, cupcake?” Carmilla purrs from her bed, where her feet are against the wall and her head is dangling upside down over the edge of the mattress.

“I don’t see why they don’t just turn them off. Why would you need a peace agreement?”

Perry appears to be too tired to even start with Laura.

“Turn them off?!” LaFontaine, completely incredulous, asks. “I think you’re confused, frosh. Let’s call the dracopyromaniacs what they are: dragons. They’re dragons. We all knew they were dragons, right?”

Carmilla laughs.

Perry cries.

LaFontaine throws her hands up in the air.

Laura’s eyes widen comically and she says, “I just thought they were really angry animatronic theatre department props.”

Carmilla rolls over and rests her chin in the palm of her hand. “Welcome to Silas, kid.”


	7. Eta

 

> ** Silas U Campus Statistics: Species Population Breakdown Subsection of the Student Handbook **
> 
>   * **62.5% human**
>   * **15.3% undead (subspecies total population breakdown: 5.2% vampires, 4.3% zombies, 4.2% ghosts, 1.6% other)**
>   * **6.3% succubus/incubus**
>   * **4.1% werewolf**
>   * **2.2% nymphs (dryad subspecies: 0.4% total population)**
>   * **2% merperson**
>   * **0.6% hobgoblin (brownie subspecies: 0.2% total population)**
>   * **0.5% rodent**
>   * **0.2% leprechaun**
>   * **6.3% unclassifiable**
> 

> 
> ** For further population statistical analysis, please consult your complimentary student handbook. Please note: beware of insults upon first opening the handbook, as the compliments tend to occur only once it has gotten to know its owner a bit better. **

“Whoever invented the concept of the  _mixer_  should be put down,” Carmilla grumbled.

Danny and Laura, sitting next to each other on one of the plush grey couches placed throughout the room, rolled their eyes — one very begrudgingly, the other somewhat lovingly, accentuated with a quirk of her lips.

Carmilla sipped her champagne as her mind flashed back to her first ball. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as she remembered things better left forgotten. In one swift motion, she upended the glass and downed its contents. When she opened her eyes again, Laura was looking at her, concern flashing in her own eyes. Carmilla shook her head subtly, and the moment was over.

“Oh, I just think mixers are  _lovely_ ,” Perry piped up from where she stood next to the couch. LaFontaine was just over her shoulder, their head swiveling around, scoping out the room with a clear glint of suspicion in their eyes. “It’s an excellent opportunity to get to know people you otherwise wouldn’t meet on such a large campus! And — just look! — our campus is full of  _such_  diversity, we should be celebrating it!”

For someone opposed to the weird and arcane, Perry was meticulous in her denial.

 

> For the werewolves — “Oh, that’s just an outbreak of hypertrichosis in the Lunar Tower dormitory,” she said, explaining away the group of hairy, salivatory students playing pool across the room.
> 
> For the mermaids — “Oh, body modification is all the rage here in Europe currently,” she said, explaining away the very obvious physiologically varied bodies of those swimming in the Silas U-provided fountain in the room.
> 
> For the ghosts — “Oh, just because it felt like you walked through an invisible, ice-cold wall of mist doesn’t  _mean anything_ , LaFontaine,” she said, after LaFontaine  _definitely_ walked through one of the many ghosts in attendance.
> 
> For the succubi — “Oh, I really didn’t see any  _tails_  coming out of their pants, I think you must have been imagining things. A little too much bubbly, perhaps, Laura?” she questioned, after Laura became distraught when a succubus spent several minutes _clearly_ flirting with Carmilla at the beverage bar. Of note, the distance was a bit too far to ascertain whether or not Carmilla was actually flirting back, but Laura still just  _didn’t like it_.

“At least there aren’t any leprechauns here,” LaFontaine offered with a sneer, their surveillance of the room complete. They had known Silas was highly inclusive — the brochure they’d received in the mail their final year of high school had said as much, emphatically, with much weight laid on the fact that  _anyone_  and  _everyone_  was welcome — but they had been  _so_ disappointed to learn that there were  _leprechauns_  in attendance. They generally thought of them as a historical disgrace to redheads everywhere.

“Hey,” Danny piped up from her seat, “what’s wrong with leprechauns, huh?”

LaFontaine’s jaw dropped. Their eyes narrowed. They took in, seemingly for the first time, Danny’s features — that hair, that stature, those distinctive facial features — and they coupled her visual findings with the innate dislike they had felt for the ginger since their very first meeting.

“ _Oh_ ,” they hissed, “are you  _kidding me?_ ”

Laura’s face did the confusion thing, Carmilla returned to the group looking just a  _little_ dazed, and Perry hummed brightly in denial while Danny and LaFontaine glared at each other.

Across the room, a frosh yelled at one of the zombies for biting his arm without asking permission first.  _“It’s called consent, man!”_

Carmilla leaned against the arm of the couch, her thigh brushing against Laura’s arm. Absolutely  _everyone_  looked  _painfully_  uncomfortable with the situation in its entirety, and pandemonium was beginning to break like a wave across the whole of the party.

“All right,” she purred, content smile curving her lips deviously upward, “I guess mixers aren’t  _that_ bad.”


	8. Theta

> **On average, 12.7 girls go missing every year at Silas.**
> 
> **Except, of course, during the years when they don’t.**

Laura drummed her pen up and down. She watched it bounce off of her notebook, over and over again. It was late — this psychology paper was adamantly refusing to write itself, and the glare of her computer screen was like a baleful watchman over her lackadaisical progress.

There came the sound of rustling movement over her shoulder, and she reflexively glanced back. Carmilla rose gracefully — yet somehow still quietly insouciant — and made her way to the fridge, grabbing a grape soda and popping the top, all with her nose still stuck in the spine of whatever book she was reading now.

Effectively distracted, Laura watched her roommate — seemingly mindlessly — sink back into bed. She made a subconscious movement then, reaching out with her elbow to tuck  _Laura’s_ yellow pillow closer to her side.

For some reason, though, this didn’t bother Laura, not like it would have even just a few weeks before.

She swiveled in her chair to fully face Carmilla.

“You said that you only come here every twenty years or so, and Danny and I were able to substantiate that pretty effectively thanks to the Silas archives.”

Carmilla dipped her book a little lower and leveled her gaze on the annoyingly persistent detective she had inherited from Betty. But she said nothing.

Laura continued.

“Do you stay with her the whole time you’re away?” Carmilla quirked an eyebrow. “Your mother?”

Carmilla’s face betrayed no underlying emotion, if any did exist beneath the surface.

“No, I don’t stay with her.”

“Couldn’t you just…not come back?” Laura offered.

Now, Carmilla chuckled. And a dark chuckle it was.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“Of course.”

This response came quickly, sharply, and Laura, chastised, was quiet for a few seconds.

But seconds somehow always pass, however slowly.

“What do you do in between nefarious Silas University goings-on?”

Still, somehow, no further emotions escaped. But Laura watched as Carmilla’s thumb rubbed along the edge of her book — back and forth, back and forth — and the way her eyes seemed to lose focus just a little bit.

“I travel,” Carmilla eventually supplied.

“That’s all?”

When Carmilla’s eyes caught Laura’s, there was finally true emotion — powerful in its delayed expression, with strength that Laura never could have anticipated. There was pain, torment, a history Laura suspected she could never fully comprehend. Her breath caught as she waited on Carmilla’s response.

And disappoint, Carmilla did not.

“…And I try to forget.”

Laura couldn’t help but reach out her hand, and it hovered in the air above Carmilla’s knee. But she couldn’t bring herself to extend it any further. After a time, she withdrew back into herself. And even as she did so, she could see Carmilla doing the same — the emotions tucking safely back into their dull, dark corners of solitude.

Progress was foreign to their relationship, it seemed, but as Laura turned back to her computer and began pecking less than enthusiastically at the keys, she hoped that it wouldn’t stay that way forever.


End file.
